Fredericksburg backs proposed Texas Ranger Heritage Center

The nonprofit group behind the proposed museum recently abandoned plans to put it in Kerrville, and is now focused on Fredericksburg.

Despite being its second pick, Fredericksburg has embraced plans by the Former Texas Rangers Foundation to build a museum and educational center there on U.S. 290.

"I think there will be vast community support for this project," Mayor Tom Musselman said of the $9.2 million Texas Rangers Heritage Center, which, until March, was planned in Kerrville.

He'll be among 550 attendees at Saturday night's $125-a-plate gala fundraiser at the Hangar Hotel. The nonprofit group, led by former ranger Joe Davis, hopes to raise $300,000, including auction revenue, there.

Davis stunned many in Kerr County by announcing that - after nearly a decade of fundraising aimed at putting the center honoring the famed agency there - his group was moving the project to Gillespie County.

"Local residents and especially those who have donated thinking they would someday be able to visit the center on the banks of the Guadalupe River are understandably upset by this news," said a March 6 editorial in the Kerrville Daily Times.

Davis said incentives and heavy tourist traffic in Fredericksburg prompted the relocation of the center.

"It was the right decision to make," he said this week. "They've welcomed us with open arms and are real anxious for us to be there and are giving us all the support we need."

Fredericksburg offered a long-term, low-cost lease on seven acres of city-owned land, and to extend utility lines to the site beside Fort Martin Scott, an Army outpost from 1848 to 1853 that's now a city-operated historic site.

"Everyone is comfortable with the status of the negotiations," Musselman said. "What we're going to need from the rangers is some data on when they expect to start construction and how many jobs they're going to create."

Davis said he expects about 10 paid workers to staff the 41,350-square-foot facility, which will feature galleries with interactive displays and more.

The group, which has raised more than $5 million since 2001, has about $3 million in its building fund, he said.

Davis hopes to begin work by next October on the project's $7.3 million first phase, which will cover 25,000 square feet, with an opening expected by 2013. Nearly $2 million more will be needed to finish it later.

Its future may lie in Fredericksburg, but the group's office is still in Kerrville, where it also owns 15 acres on Texas 173, the center's prior site, which it bought for $480,000.

"We plan on moving (the office) in the near future" to Fredericksburg," Davis said, and the land is on the market.